Has there ever been a writer more capable of evoking the feeling of genuine mystery quite as well as Dame Agatha Christie? It seems unlikely, even if the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe seem to be stiff competition. Whether it’s the macabre sense of humour, or the fact that the viewer feels like a detective themselves, stringing together the small but fascinating clues we receive while experiencing one of her many stories, there was something to keep us engaged constantly, regardless of the work. Her several Hercules Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries present us with intriguing characters investigating a range of different crimes (sometimes in the most exotic of locations), but its often those that stand alone that offer us the most substantial entertainment, since they afford her the space to be slightly more experimental and subversive. This is the case for And Then There Were None (alternatively known as Ten Little Indians, derived from the outdated nursery rhyme that serves as the central motif), Christie’s bizarre but compelling murder mystery that sees ten strangers converging on a remote island, invited there by an unknown socialite, only to discover that they are being killed one by one, as a means to pay the consequences of crimes that they had each committed individually over time. It was the subject of a film adaptation by the brilliant René Clair, who challenges the viewer to look beyond the obvious, inviting us to accompany him and his cast of eccentric characters as they go in search of the identity of Mr U.N. Owen, whose playful approach to revenge makes for some very dark but intriguing filmmaking, captured by one of the most unheralded masters of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Christie’s work is always entertaining, but when being translated to the visual medium (whether on film, television or the stage) they entail more moving parts than those we find in their original printed format. As a result, it takes a special kind of filmmaker to capture her stories on screen and still make them compelling – and Clair was certainly amongst the very best choices for And Then There Were None, for a number of reasons. Primarily, he was a great visual stylist, crafting films that were always a marvel to look at, which makes his interpretation of Christie so interesting, since rather than being the extravagant, detailed film we encountered in later years, we instead received a more moody, atmospheric one that borders on gothic. However, this was vastly undercut by his playfulness – he was a director who knew how to plumb even the dourest material for humour, and his interpretation of And Then There Were None is wickedly funny, to the point of almost being perverted in both style and substance. To fully embrace this film, one has to have a penchant for the macabre and the absurd, both of which are interwoven – and considering how Christie herself was known for her sardonic sense of humour, it seems not only reasonable, but entirely appropriate, for an adaptation of one of her darkest novels to have the caustic and grotesque humour that reminds us of how brilliant a good, immersive murder mystery can be, and that sometimes logic can be overrated, which is certainly an appropriate way to look at this particular story, which disregards rational thought and instead leaps into the more extravagant and sumptuous demonstration of the human desire to solve a mystery.

The human element of And Then There Were None is certainly clear from the opening frames, with the ensemble cast being composed of a wide range of formidable actors from various backgrounds and walks of life. Some, like Judith Anderson, Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston, are seasoned veterans, the people cast for the sake of stability, while the younger actors like Louis Hayward and June Duprez appear to give the film a vibrant, youthful and modern twist, since it can sometimes be slightly dreary to see an assemblage of older individuals. The cast of the film is exquisite, and they each have remarkable chemistry. With something as iconic as Christie’s work, it is difficult to avoid having these stories spoiled, but this is one case where the less the viewer knows, the better – considering we don’t know which one of the character is the mysterious U.N. Owen (of course being a roundabout way of saying “unknown”), part of the fun is trying to psychoanalyse every one of these people, in the hopes of discovering some clues that point us in that direction – and interestingly, unlike most of Christie’s mysteries, there isn’t a separate character that exists as the detective, but rather everyone in the film becomes an investigator, including the killer, whose identity we only learn in the chilling climax, which is one of the most well-acted scenes of the 1940s (but the details of which I don’t want to mention, so as not to spoil this delightful film for anyone who has not seen it), and we are constantly being drawn into this world by these characters who are not traditionally endearing, since they’re all accused of serious crimes, but who make for a suitably entertaining work of fiction that has some incredibly poignant real-world references that make it even more complex.

Putting the narrative aside (because we’ve seen so many adaptations of the author’s work, each one interesting in its own way, with over a dozen different adaptations of this same story being produced throughout the years), we can see how Clair does a lot more than just retell her story in the visual medium. Structurally, And Then There Were None is a fascinating text, and Clair ensures that a lot of these qualities are brought over from the book when he and Dudley Nichols set out to adapt it into what is likely one of the more subversive entries into the genre ever made. This particular novel is perhaps the closest Christie ever came to writing a pure horror – one could even say that she helped pioneer the now-beloved and widespread sub-genre of the slasher film, with the structure of a mysterious villain gradually killing off his victims one-by-one being an early example of this kind of story, and one that is just as unsettling. The film is navigating some very treacherous narrative territory, but it gets right to the point, wasting very little time as we watch these characters slowly piece together the fragments of this puzzle, which is incredibly disturbing but also wickedly funny at the same time. Clair’s directorial vision is precise and compelling – he may have been thrust into making relatively simple films during his Hollywood career, but there was a reason he was considered one of the most promising young filmmakers when he was working in his native France, since his balance of visual and narrative details lead to some intriguing and captivating ideas that keep the viewer interested, even if we aren’t particularly beguiled by the story itself, which isn’t likely, but is still something of a possibility.

While it may not be seen as influential in its own right (unless we’re looking at the canon of great Agatha Christie adaptations), And Then There Were None is a masterful and entertaining film with a lot of brilliant ideas, and which set the foundation for dark and foreboding psychological thrillers that can be chilling and hilarious, even in tandem. It proves that a good film can be made from nothing but a strong story, a good cast and a decent level of creativity – and this film has this in an abundance, being filled to the brim with genuinely complex and meaningful storytelling, plucked directly from the mind of one of our greatest storytellers, and crafted into a brilliant and enduring tale of murder and intrigue by a director that knows how to take any material and fashion it into a riveting game of cat-and-mouse that keeps the viewer guessing from beginning to end. It’s difficult to not be fond of this film – the blend of humour, scathing satire and unhinged terror makes for a deliciously twisted mystery film that provides countless reasons for why we love Agatha Christie and her iconic brand of taking us on journeys to the deepest recesses of the human condition, showing us the most hideous side of our species, while having a lot of fun in the process, which makes And Then There Were None one of the most enduring classics when it comes to the subject of the murder mystery, and a film that remains as compulsively intriguing today as it did several decades ago, when viewers were first introduced to the looming presence of Mr U.N. Owen and his desire to see genuinely bad people get their comeuppance.